


Can you feel the connection

by sin_compromiso



Category: X-Men (Movieverse), X-Men - All Media Types
Genre: Charles You Slut, Charles You Will Be Drunk, Erik Has Feelings, Everyone drinks all the time, F/F, F/M, M/M, These boys are in love
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-10-11
Updated: 2019-10-11
Packaged: 2020-12-07 23:13:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,632
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20983973
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sin_compromiso/pseuds/sin_compromiso
Summary: Basically Charles is in a relationship, Erik is his best friend, and pining happens.





	Can you feel the connection

“And how are you getting home, Charles?”

"I have insurance.” Charles answers

"Jean?”

“Friends with benefits, right? I believe that getting a lift home when plastered is one of those benefits”.

“I hope, for your sake, not the greatest one”. Erik says

  
Charles seemed to sober up a little, but he couldn’t mind —Erik decided— Erik talking about his sex life. They did it all the time.

  
“Would you like me to tell you details?” Charles asked him, playfully enough, not meaning it at all, but Erik was nevertheless too afraid to answer anything but a loud “fuck you” mixed with laughter that sounded bitter to his own ears. He trusted Charles to be drunk enough not to notice. Erik decides that, in matters regarding what Charles should or shouldn’t notice about Erik, Charles is not to be trusted at all when he’s this drunk.

  
“But you do trust me, don’t you, Erik” Charles suddenly exclaims. Not quite a proper question, it sounded almost like advice. Judging by Charles’ tone apparently it was wise of Erik to trust him.

  
“I trust you enough to let you crash at my place tonight. Not nearly enough to fall sleep before you do” Erik finally says.

  
Charles seemed to think this was hilarious. Surely remembering some drunken atrocity of the past, performed near a passed out Erik. Like the time Charles let their mutual friend Emma and her friends have a slumber-party after-hours in Erik’s bed while Charles played drunken league of legends in the salon with Erik passed out laying at his feet. Erik didn’t care what Charles had said that time, Erik’s sheets stunk of alcohol —the good kind, because Emma liked fancy things— and bong water. He thought it wouldn’t hurt to mention something about it now, just to illustrate the point.

  
“I wasn’t even thinking about that time” Charles laughed, like that helped. Charles always laughed when he was with Erik. Well, Charles laughed with every one, really, he was generous like that. But that laugh, clear and elated, while looking into Erik’s eyes, with that greedy spark in the corner of Charles’ face like Erik was something he would want to keep— well that, Erik though, didn’t —couldn’t possibly— happen with everybody.

  
“Jean might want me at her house tonight,” Charles spoke again “between her legs to be specific”.

  
“That–” Erik admits—“is a legitimate possibility”. Erik’s voice sanded raspy, mostly from the alcohol, he decided, and it had become very important that he didn’t touch Charles at the moment.

It was easy to make his stride a little longer and put some space between them. “Please don’t trouble yourself illustrating it, I get the general idea”.

As a rule, he didn’t mind Charles bluntness about his sex life, he must have been drunker than he had thought, if he was complaining out loud.

  
“What shall I do if she calls then? She’s not gonna like having to drive to your place to pick me up” Charles says, like it’s Erik’s problem.

“Well, Charles, she doesn’t wanna leave yet, and you are too wasted to stay” Erik says.

“When have I ever been such a thing as ‘too wasted’? I feel like you only use that to your advantage” Charles answers, sounding offended.

Erik tenses noticeably, “the fuck you’re talking about ‘my advantage’? What’s in it for me?” He quickly spits.

  
“Nothing, forget it I don’t know, I mean– just you—doing what you want, I don’t know..” Charles trails off.

"I don’t need you for that” Erik clarifies. He manages to keep the spite from bleeding into the tone. But the words sounded fake to his own ears.

“You don’t wanna leave by yourself and you are kidnaping me” Charles says, sounding sweet in a way Erik will never understand how it’s possible.

  
“Stay, then. At the bar I mean” Erik says. He stops suddenly, facing Charles with an empty expression in his mouth and eyes that burned with the need to push away once and for all. At least for tonight. Charles seemed to be able to feel it, his grin fell and he opened his mouth as to say something.

Erik turned around, as swiftly as if he had just been stung by a needle, and walked away.

  
“Erik!”

  
He kept walking. Trying to make a run for it.

  
“–Please!”

  
Erik cursed himself, and slowly turned back. It took two seconds for Charles to catch up to him, in that pathetically drunken manner Erik was finding so difficult not to respond to.

  
“I’d sooner go with you” Charles decides.

“Don’t do me any favours, your highness”.

“Are you mocking me?”

“Are you listening to yourself?” Erik asks, still defensive.

  
"Can we play drunken chess?” Charles asks, refusing to acknowledge Erik’s attitude.

“I could,” Erik finally concedes. “You I’m not so sure. I’d say you’re gonna pass out beautifully as soon as we cross the door”.

He does his best to act nonchalant about his use of the word ‘beautifully’. Charles isn’t one to talk about adjectives anyways. Almost every phrase he says includes the word 'darling’.

  
“Jean and I never play chess. I mean I don’t– know if she– plays, I mean I’m sure– she does, or at least she knows how. And I for sure do but just not… with her”.

Sometimes Erik really wanted to know what Charles expected to accomplish with such sentences. What did he think it was gonna happen? What did he want Erik to do?

  
“It’s only chess, Charles. It’s not important” .

  
“Don’t say that!” Charles gasped, suddenly sounding sober.

  
“It’s okay Charles, chill, it’s not important”. Oh, for fucks’ sakes.

  
Erik took a little rotten pleasure in dismissing their ritual, though that was a childish way of reacting to whatever he was feeling right now. Not fitted at all for him, and why was Erik thinking about their idle chess nights like some kind of ritual? Those were words Charles would use. If he ever were to give such great consideration to such a small matter.

Erik knew he was somehow important to Charles, but surely not enough see their many chess encounters as something sacred. Not enough to rank their chess matches top five in Charles’ list of priorities.

Still, Charles looked sad, and Erik wanted to physically hurt himself for being the cause.

  
“I mean it’s not… like you started this.. whole thing with her just so you could have another chess partner, is it?” Erik asks, trying to fix it. But he’s always been more of a breaker than a fixer.

Still, he tried to sound light, he quite managed it, too. He was very proud of himself.

  
“What would I want another chess partner for?” Charles almost spits, his words dragging in a way Erik believed only drunk Oxonians could manage, and Erik had to conscientiously stop his hands from tearing at his own shirt, because Charles saying those things to him caused other thoughts and he was starting to feel desperate and it was a good thing Charles was drunk because Erik’s thoughts were getting out if control.

He almost wanted to go back to talk about sex with Jean.

  
“So the sex is good, yes?” Erik said, almost too loud. His voice had gone one octave higher.

It was the verbal equivalent of suddenly attempting a cartwheel to distract someone.

  
"What sex?”

  
"You and Jean, who else?”, Shit.

  
"Sorry I… thought we were still talking about our chess,”

Seriously, Charles had said‘our chess’.  
Why. Charles was doing it on purpose. He had to be, and Erik was still gonna kick himself.

  
"You are sort of making it sound like both activities are in the same level, Charles.” Fuck you, Erik thinks, and it’s not clear to whom it’s directed.

  
"No, I mean–” Charles starts, but Erik cuts him off, because enough’s enough.

  
“So sex no good?”

  
“Of course it is. You know it is”.

It was the truth. Erik knew, sort of. Fuck his life.

Normally —generally— he was not openly against the idea of a friend being… intimate with someone else in Erik’s apartment, even though he couldn’t rely on its walls, since you could hear everything from anywhere anyways but, he thought, that’s what alcohol and music are for.

So yeah, Charles was right. Charles had also —by the sounds of it-– fucked Jean in a very unorthodox position on Erik’s couch. Twice.

  
And what could he, Erik, have said to stop it, to prevent it? He had allowed other people to do it before, so he couldn’t —wouldn’t-- object to Charles. He had to let it happen.

And of course, after what seamed like hours of anxiety, he was able to sleep, confident in the idea that Charles would never do it again. He would never dare, never again would he put Erik in that position —though Erik’ scumbag brain kept asking what was the actual position and how Charles would look doing whatever it was that he had done to Jean and maybe Erik should just use it on someone or something because maybe he just needed to have sex and that’s why he thought about that -- After a while everything was over and well, and Erik had tough it up like a champion and taken one for the team.

  
But Charles had done it again, the night Erik had been stupid enough to accept Jean’s offer to give him a lift home.

He had wanted to protest on principle, but then Jean forced both Charles and himself to ride in the backseat together and well, he sort of lost track of the argument and his objections because Charles had suddenly been fascinated with the roman numbers on Erik’s old watch.

Now, Erik didn’t believe there was anything strange about that. Truth, Charles had held that same watch in his hands hundreds of times, had even wore said watch on several occasions because apparently he loved it and had no problem borrowing Erik’s shit, even though most of the times everything of Erik’s was too big for him, including the watch. But also, Charles was siting in the backseat, and that meant not being able to reach for Jean’s knee while she drove so, obviously, he had had the urge to do something with his hands.

And if Erik had felt a little peculiar with Charles’ palms being hot and tight around his wrist well, that certainly could not be what Jean had been thinking about the moment Erik caught her gaze in the back mirror for a second.

  
Then they had arrived to Erik’s door and Charles had been all why-don’t-we-chill-a-bit-more and ‘come on Erik, please and since when do you get tired so fast?’ and then Jean had mentioned she wanted to drink more and Charles had gotten out of the car and said he was not going anywhere until their requests were met and oh— Erik had recognize that grin and the intentions behind it.

Charles was gonna fuck her within Erik’s proximity and by god, Erik was sick, because he was gonna allowed it.

  
So Jean had followed Charles, the soft red of her hair flowing behind her, mocking Erik, and she was oblivious to that, to everything but the appreciative glance Charles was throwing upon her.

Charles hadn’t hesitated before caressing her neck with soft fingers as soon as she had been within his reach and Erik had been sure he was gonna be sick before reaching the door. He had rushed past them upstairs, unable to get out of their sight fast enough.

  
After minutes of Erik not knowing if he was supposed to close the door of his appartment and not wait for them or just to stand there idiotically doing nothing besides being consumed by the awkwardness of it all, they had come up. Jean with her jacket in her hands and Charles all flushed and horny.

Erik could see the long, unforgiving night that presented itself in front of him. If only he would have been able to come up with a legit reason why Charles and Jean having sex in his apartment was not a good idea and wouldn’t benefit anybody…

  
Jean had made herself at home, lying barefoot on the couch, and Charles hadn’t wasted any time unbuttoning his shirt sleeves and asking yet something more from Erik:

  
“Would you make me a vodka martini?”

“Tell you what, there’s the bottle, you can drink straight from it as I know you like, you don’t have to use a glass”.

“But I’ve been thinking about the taste of your martinis for half the night! please Erik, and then I’ll stop bothering you, I swear!”

  
It had been a lie, like it was every time Charles promised to stop doing something he enjoyed. Not that Erik believed Charles enjoyed bothering him in particular, but it had become something of a vice to him. Erik wasn’t the least pleased by that idea. Really, he wasn’t.

  
Erik had done what Charles wanted (nothing extraordinary in that), and shoved the drink into Charles’ hands as if he could not wait for him to keep his end of the deal and go back to his… date; and if Erik had taken his time and had let himself relax and respond to Charles’ inebriated small-talk while the asshole remained perched to Erik’s shoulder in the kitchen where Erik was mixing the drinks, well, it was Erik’s damned apartment so fuck them.

  
The rest of the evening had been more or less atrocious. Erik had barricaded himself in his bedroom, sleeping had turned out to be pretty much impossible, and when the noises (not moaning. Erik was not gonna think about those) started coming to him from underneath his bedroom door, well, he had basically run out of there, dashing out of his room and back into the streets, carefully avoiding any eye-contact whatsoever unless he would be scarred for life, and barely mumbling something in reply to Charles when he rose from the couch, half undressed, and tried to catch up with him.

Erik had not come back until early next morning, to find Charles sleeping in his couch, alone. He hadn’t asked for any explanation and Charles hadn’t offered one. They had just stayed there, hung-over in Erik appartment just the two of them and,to this date, Charles had never again brought Jean to spend the night at Erik’s. So Erik had decided he was not gonna complain. Not out loud.

  
“Then there you go Charles. Okay sex and free rides home. Your relationships don’t get any better than that.” Erik tells his friend as they are, once again, approaching Erik’s street.

  
“Yeah, you are one to talk. I’m positive the longest relationship you’ve had is with your bike.”

  
“You say it like it’s a bad thing! I should think myself lucky judging by what I’ve seen of your relationships” Erik says, chuckling casually while he fights the urge to hold Charles’ elbow. Charles seemed to be having a bit of trouble maintaining his balance while keeping up with Erik’s longer stride. Erik really enjoyed being the tallest one.

  
"I believe… I have been able to have myself a fairly good time. Maybe if you followed my example you wouldn’t be so pissed and tense all the time” Charles chuckles.

  
“And maybe, if you found somebody you actually liked, you would not have to be so fucking smashed every time you fuck them, just so you could enjoy yourself” Erik says, casually, but very aware of the shift in the vibe.

  
Charles looked at him straight in the eyes for a second, but without saying anything. Of course Charles would choose to ignore the only remark Erik actually wants him to answer to.


End file.
